You really can find anything on eBay

The internet is big. You can announce your break-up, find a mac-and-cheese recipe pretty dang close to your grandma's, challenge other people at jewel-matching games and make sand art.

And now you can also be a "journalist". As PR people, we constantly find ourselves discussing the "new face of journalism" and how citizen journalists and traditional journalists can peacefully co-exist. We've shifted the methods we use to reach our clients' targets, including bloggers in our outreach efforts and debating regularly who our markets' influencers are.

As our view of credible sources shifts, here's something to keep in mind:
A traditional journalist who reviews a restaurant is going to disclose the fact that the chef comped his meal to get the story.
A blogger may not.

At the recent IFBC in Seattle, panelists brought up this very point, suggesting that for a blog to earn street cred, transparency is key.

Given that:
A traditional journalist will return the product you sent him to review, so that no one can claim that his review was positive because he benefited financially from the opportunity.
A blogger may not. Or as I witnessed today, a blogger may even keep the review product you sent him (which you suggested he giveaway to his readers) and attempt to sell it on eBay.

We're becoming more and more internet savvy. There are Boomers on Facebook and the emails from the Prince of Africa, offering millions of dollars are luring fewer people. Hopefully, the bloggers with higher standards will earn credibility and those without will get ignored.

Hopefully.

50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

[this is pulled from another blog]

We really can’t deny the fact that businesses are testing out Twitter as part of their steps into the social media landscape. You can say it’s a stupid application, that no business gets done there, but there are too many of us (including me) that can disagree and point out business value. I’m not going to address the naysayers much with this. Instead, I’m going to offer 50 thoughts for people looking to use Twitter for business. And by “business,” I mean anything from a solo act to a huge enterprise customer.

Your mileage may vary, and that’s okay. Further, you might have some really great ideas to add. That’s why we have lively conversations here at [chrisbrogan.com] in the comments section. Jump right in!

First Steps
-Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.)
-Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you.
-Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human.
-Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you.
-Share links to neat things in your community. ( @wholefoods does this well).
-Don’t get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( @jetblue gives travel tips.)
-Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
-Promote your employees’ outside-of-work stories. ( @TheHomeDepot does it well.)
-Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc.
-Talk about non-business, too, like @astrout and @jstorerj from Mzinga.

Ideas About WHAT to Tweet
-Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
-Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety.
-When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
-Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
-Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
-Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
-When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
-Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
-Don’t toot your own horn too much. (Man, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I do it all the time. - ---Side note: I’ve gotta stop tooting my own horn). Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.

Some Sanity For You
-You don’t have to read every tweet.
-You don’t have to reply to every @ tweet directed to you (try to reply to some, but don’t feel guilty).
-Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel there’s no value to Twitter at large to hear the conversation ( got this from @pistachio).
-Use services like Twitter Search to make sure you see if someone’s talking about you. Try to participate where it makes sense.
-3rd party clients like Tweetdeck and Twhirl make it a lot easier to manage Twitter.
-If you tweet all day while your coworkers are busy, you’re going to hear about it.
-If you’re representing clients and billing hours, and tweeting all the time, you might hear about it.
-Learn quickly to use the URL shortening tools like TinyURL and all the variants. It helps tidy up your tweets.
-If someone says you’re using twitter wrong, forget it. It’s an opt out society. They can unfollow if they don’t like how you use it.
-Commenting on others’ tweets, and retweeting what others have posted is a great way to build community.

The Negatives People Will Throw At You
-Twitter takes up time.
-Twitter takes you away from other productive work.
-Without a strategy, it’s just typing.
-There are other ways to do this.
-As Frank hears often, Twitter doesn’t replace customer service (Frank is @comcastcares and is a superhero for what he’s started.)
-Twitter is buggy and not enterprise-ready.
-Twitter is just for technonerds.
-Twitter’s only a few million people. (only)
-Twitter doesn’t replace direct email marketing.
-Twitter opens the company up to more criticism and griping.

Some Positives to Throw Back
-Twitter helps one organize great, instant meetups (tweetups).
-Twitter works swell as an opinion poll.
-Twitter can help direct people’s attention to good things.
-Twitter at events helps people build an instant “backchannel.”
-Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, often (especially if the news impacts online denizens).
-Twitter gives businesses a glimpse at what status messaging can do for an organization. -Remember presence in the 1990s?
-Twitter brings great minds together, and gives you daily opportunities to learn (if you look for it, and/or if you follow the right folks).
-Twitter gives your critics a forum, but that means you can study them.
-Twitter helps with business development, if your prospects are online (mine are).
-Twitter can augment customer service. (but see above)

Root of All Evil - Bloggers!

It is official the root of all evil are Bloggers. They beat UFC. And even though Lewis Black did not send down this punishment I think all blogers should have to line up and take their turn in the octagon with UFC's elite. So I guess that inlcudes me right now. And I am friends with a UFC fighter and let me tell you he would beat my a*#!!! So Ivan if for some reason you read this please be kind, remember it does not take much to send me to the ground in pain, no need for you to work up a sweat.

But for those of you in our industry watch the episode there are some great lines about the popularity and absurdity of blogging and even twitter.

Crap, they're on to us...

"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." - The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus.

Message boards are to gamers what the wretched teaming shore is to the huddled masses. Yearning to breathe free, gamers flood comment sections, forums and messageboards eager to spout their opinion, extrapolate on what they think is newsworthy and generally look for the opportunity to make the next poster feel like absolute s#$! about themselves.

It's a fascinating ecosystem to watch, and one in which I participated in as a voyeur for many years before coming to my job which made it a requirement. Silently watching, scrolling we’ve been tracking what gamers are saying, what industry announcements are significant, and what new ways to say pwned have emerged for years now. Well apparently, they’re on to us.

1UP has an extensive article examining the effects of messageboards on the gaming industry, featuring interviews with developers, journalists and people just like me (except they have more impressive sounding job titles and significantly bigger pay checks). The stories of these individuals range from those who have tried too hard to fit in to the crowd, those who ignore the crowd, and those who love messageboards for exactly what they are. A ridiculous, over-the-top, mind numbing source of fiber and news.

The article asks “Do marketers keep their ear to the ground at NeoGAF and other message boards? Do they track public reaction to their promotional efforts?”

Some PR types admitted to doing exactly that and commented on how it affects their plans.
“At every level, we have people who follow the trends closely and pay attention to what the community takes to and what the community skewers.”
Elizabeth Tobey (community manager, 2K Games)

Others tend to be more cautious:
“We live in an online world where anything we say and do is disseminated on a global scale in an instant. This has revolutionized the way we do marketing and PR. While we are always thinking about our campaigns through a digital, global lens, we do not micromanage our campaigns in reaction to any one online moment.”
Tammy Schachter (senior director of PR, EA Games)

A NeoGAF moderator, one of the prime examples of a vitriolic and fantastic gaming messageboards, noted that his community does not respond well to such efforts, saying “I'd like to think GAFers could smell a rat, but it seems like a good percentage of them can't even smell the ones right under their noses.”

So with such a huge potential of backfiring, questionable analysis of content, and enough bad grammar and hate mongering to make a Klan member feel bashful, what’s the value of a messageboard and how do PR types go about using it? How involved with the conversations should we get, considering how easy it is for a forum moderator to look up your IP address and tell everyone exactly who you work for and the latitude/longitude of where you posted from?

I’ve seen success to a certain extent with “MVP” programs where companies designate particularly level-headed forum posters, and encourage them to actively remain a voice of reason. By providing these individuals with slightly increased access to the company, community members tend to congregate around every post these individuals make. It doesn’t stop more high-strung posters from calling these MVPs corporate shills and digitally spitting in their face, but it at least insures that a larger crowd is seeing some more levelheaded messaging. Other than that, these forums are excellent sources of news and trends. With 1000s of people posting leaked info, screenshots, developer interviews and much more daily, messageboards are like google alerts on steroids.

What do you think?

Oh yeah, and really, go read the 1UP article.

Continuing the Conversation

Seattle was recently blessed by the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama among others who spoke at great length on the subject of compassion. Even for a cynical jerk like me, it was a pretty profound experience all and all. 

We attended the five day event and gathered the thoughts, reactions and ponderings of the people at the event and "compassionized" it into a series of podcasts, the first of which you can download here. If you like changing the world, adorable kids and NOT kicking puppies, then I encourage you to listen. More to come.

(Editor's Note: Extremely rough cut, overeager to share, updated version coming soon).

Identifying Top Bloggers

Marshall Kirkpatrick, from ReadWritewWeb, has basically confirmed, in more or less words, what I have been saying for a very long time - Technorati Sucks! For a while there I thought I was going crazy because the site kept making these so called 'improvements' and the service kept getting worse! About 6 months ago I used Technorati to develop all of my blog lists and to do online tracking for our clients - now I look else where.  Check out Marshall's blog posting below where he weighs the pros and cons of several platforms used for identifying top bloggers in any niche. 

I've gone ahead and added these websites to our 'PR Resources' list over to the right - check them out when you get a chance and let us know which ones you find the most helpful for creating your own blog lists!

Click Here to Read the post.